1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to television broadcast studios and, more particularly, to play to air control workstation systems in television broadcast studios for controlling and managing television broadcasts.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
The architecture of a typical broadcast studio can be viewed as a complicated web of electronic and mechanical devices connected together by miles of cabling and numerous switches. Because of this complexity, studios exhibit a number of problems that must constantly be addressed. The most apparent and costly of these is that of maintaining the enormous bulk of cabling and switches upon which the studio is built. While this is generally not a problem with smaller studios, it becomes an increasingly more pressing issue as the studio matures. As studios grow and new components are introduced, cabling must be added to connect the new components to the existing studio devices. In most cases, reusing cabling may not be an option since the current studio operations often cannot be interrupted. As the studio matures and the equipment in the studio undergoes enhancement and change, the job of maintaining and managing this ever increasing mass of wiring requires a significant effort. Over time, even determining the function of a given cable can be a difficult task. In addition, the dependence that existing studio devices can have on their particular position in the web can create serious problems when cabling is removed, or when the web topography changes. The end result is that much of the studio technologies that are in use today are both costly and difficult to change. In addition, the deployment of new technologies into a studio requires a great deal of time and effort to ensure that the studio remains in a properly working state.
Another problem with current studio architectures is the physical limitations placed on the equipment in the studio. Since adding new cabling to a studio represents a significant amount of effort and cost, new devices are generally placed where they are easiest to wire. While studios have adapted their current operations to accommodate these constraints, planning for future technologies whose physical requirements are unknown becomes a difficult task. The result is that adoption of new technologies can be slowed significantly because of pressures to conserve valuable studio real estate. In addition, personnel that use or manage the studio devices are generally located where it is most economical to deploy them. Often, this will mean that studio workers must be located within close proximity to the devices they manage. The overall result is that people and equipment tend to be located within the studio where they physically make sense rather than being grouped together where their functions are logically beneficial.
It would accordingly be desirable to provide a system for managing and controlling resources in a broadcast studio which is very flexible to change and highly adaptable to new technologies with a minimum of effort, disruption and cost.
The problems outlined above are in large part solved by a play to air controller station system in a distributed object television broadcast studio in accordance with the present invention. In one embodiment, a play to air control work station is used to control a variety of resources in a broadcast studio system interconnected by a communications network. The resources of the broadcast studio system include a transmitter unit, various media source devices such as tape decks and file servers, a network routers unit, and various decoders and encoders. The broadcast studio system is managed as a network distributed object system where an all physical devices are attached to the network either by containing appropriate software within themselves, or by attaching themselves to a computer proxy that is on the network and is able to control their functionality. The control system includes one or more device objects configured to store, route and transmit selected video segments to be aired from the television broadcast studio, For example, the device objects may include a tape deck object, a router object, a video server object, an encoder and/or decoder object, and a transmitter object. The device objects generally define common public functionality required by the studio. The control system further includes one or more video playout identification objects which include playout information to identify and specify an order for airing of predetermined video segments. In one specific implementation, the video playout identification objects include a media source object which encapsulates the attributes of a media segment that will be aired and which forms the smallest granularity element of a program segment. A program object is further provided which serves as a container for media source objects. Similarly, a playlist object is created which serves as a container for program objects. An application object which supports user interactions with the play to air control workstation allows for user creation and manipulation of the media source, program, and playlist objects. A playlistDB (database) object, a single instance of which exists in the studio, provides appropriate API""s (Application Program Interfaces) for querying and editing playlists in the database. The playlistDB object further manages scheduling tasks that result from playlist editing operations, and creates and manages an update event channel for every playlist in the database for the purpose of keeping all playlist objects in a consistent state. The play to air control work station further comprises one or more control objects configured to receive the playout information according to the playout identification objects and to effectuate transmission of predetermined video segments in accordance with the playout information. In one implementation, the control objects include a system resource manager which generally manages and reserves system resources. The system resource manager further implements admission control and load balancing algorithms for the studio devices, and may provide certain device attributes to querying devices such as device latencies.
A play to air work control workstation for a television broadcast studio in accordance with the present invention may advantageously accommodate flexible control of resources in the broadcast studio. The system is further very flexible to change and is highly adaptable to new technologies with a minimum of effect disruption and cost.